


Mary's Gift

by Untherius



Category: Emberverse - S. M. Stirling
Genre: AU, Childbirth, Christmas, Gen, Mermaids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some experiences are strange, some take one's breath away, but a few do both.  That's how it happens that Mary gives her father his best Christmas gift ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mary's Gift

Larsdalen  
December 17, CY 17, 2029 AD

Mike Havel sat in his living room, reading a book. Rather, he was re-reading it. It was, ironically, the sort of book he would never have been caught dead reading back in his teens and twenties. The title was, “Mermaid and Water Spirit Tales From Around the World” and it was a _thick_ book.

It wasn't that he had very many better things to do on a cold December evening. Well, there was one thing, but Signe was occupied and they were expecting company any minute now anyway. Barring that, his to-do list never seemed to shrink. No matter how many things he crossed off the list, something else always seemed add itself to the end.

During the middle of an Oregon winter, though, most of that slowed down. The short daylight hours and the cold, ceaseless rain conspired to limit the available work time. Several years of peace with his neighbor to the north also took some of the pressure off of the demands for his time. All the harvesting was in, planting wouldn't be done until the ground dried out some time in March or April, and most of the rest could usually wait for those rare dry days that provided any excuse to get out of one's house.

An equally rare Arctic air mass had been parked over northern Oregon for the past week and had frozen the ground a couple of inches deep. It was a perfect recipe for focusing on indoor pursuits. Mike, unfortunately, had to keep ice-free the stair-way of pools that led like a giant fish-ladder from the subterranean water tunnel under the citadel wall all the way up to his house. That was part of the route his daughter and son-in-law were to take during their journey from the Pacific Ocean to the pool at the end of his living room. It was a task he willingly did out of the love he had for her, despite it being a very cold, very wet job. A fire in a small, pot-bellied stove, installed in the corner some time since the Change, helped keep the room at least tolerably warm. Keeping the chill out of the air in one's home was often about as good as one could expect in the Changed world.

He was about to go back out to check on the ice situation when he heard a disturbance in the water just a few feet away. He looked up to see a familiar face rise up from the otherwise flat surface. He set the book down and stood up, joints cricking, to walk over and kneel down by the water's edge.

Mary Swift nee Havel rose up out of the water and hugged her father. “Hello, Daddy!”

“Hey there, princess,” he said as he hugged her back, thankful that his clothing shielded him against all the cold water clinging to his daughter's skin. Then he drew back and looked her in the eye. “I've missed you.”

She smiled. “I've missed you too,” she replied. “And are you using my title or a pet name?”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I _am_ married to a prince, you know, and that _does_ make me a princess. How many times do I have to remind you?”

“Where _is_ that husband of yours anyway?”

“He's bringing some gifts up from the river.”

“Oh?”

“Well, it _is_ Christmas-time isn't it?”

“And neither of you has ever accepted anything from any of _us_ ,” he pointed.

Mary giggled. She rested her elbows on the low wall that held the pool and settled her weight on them, letting her lower half dangle below the water. “Seriously, Daddy? Where would we keep it?”

Mike shook his head, still smiling. “Beats me.”

Mary backed away from the wall and levered herself up onto the wide, foot-deep ledge next to the low retaining wall that separated the pool from the rest of the room. She settled herself and flopped her long blonde braids over her bare breasts.

Mike looked down into the water and shook his head slowly, his smile broadening. “You know,” he said, “I'm still the only man on earth who can honestly say his daughter has a beautiful tail without it sounding sick and wrong.”

Mary laughed. “Oh, Daddy, you're hilarious,” she said as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“And you're wet,” he said.

“Of course I'm wet. Why wouldn't I be?”

“How do you stand that, anyway?”

She just smiled and shrugged.

Another disturbance caught his attention. A man broke the surface and plopped a mesh bag of something atop a wide spot on the wall, water draining out of it. It made a dull, clattering sound as it hit the rocks.

Mike moved over and clasped his hand firmly. “You're still taking care of my little girl, I see.”

“Of course,” replied the man in a mostly-English accent.

“What's that?” said Mike, indicating the bag.

“Shellfish,” replied the man. “And...” He turned and disappeared below the surface, returning a minute later. He heaved two large fish out of the water to land them on the wall with a smack-thump. “...salmon. The winter steelhead run is a bit early this year. We have a little more, but we thought we should at least say 'hello' first.”

Suddenly, Mary gasped.

Mike looked sharply over at her, a sudden concern rising in him. That day eight years ago, the day she'd died in his arms, still haunted him. “What is it?”

She looked at her husband, who swished over to her. She nodded to him, gasped again, then grinned. Then she looked back at her father. “I'm sorry, Daddy,” she said as she gasped again, still holding her smile, then slid off the ledge with her husband's help, “but I'm afraid you'll have to stay up here and watch.” At that, the two of them submerged amid a large surface eddy and a great cloud of bubbles and sank out of sight to the bottom of the ten-foot-deep pool.

“Watch?” called Mike after them. “Honey, watch what?”

Signe walked into the room. “Mike? What was that?”

He turned and looked at his wife. “Um...Mary and Noah are here, but...” He turned back to the pool.

“But what?” said Signe, a note of concern in her voice.

“But she gasped a few times...like she was in pain...and told me I'd have to stay up here and watch. I'm worried about her, alskling.”

Signe walked over and knelt down next to her husband, peering into the water. An occasional flash of something silvery flickered in the gloom. Signe blinked. “Um...Mike? I...I think she might be having a baby.”

Mike looked sharply at his wife. “What?!”

“I think she's having a baby,” she repeated.

“She can't be.”

“Why not?”

“She's only sixteen!”

“So? Sixteen-year-olds have been having babies for years. Hell, they've been having babies even _before_ the Change...Shift...whatever the hell we're supposed to call it.”

Mike just blinked at her.

“I think,” continued Signe, “that you're having a problem because it's _our_ sixteen-year-old having a baby.”

“Whose sixteen-year-old is having a baby?” said a familiar voice from behind them.

Mike and Signe turned to see the eerily familiar face of Ritva, her blonde braids hanging over her shoulders. Mike was never sure how his two daughters always managed to wear their hair the same way despite months of being incommunicado. Their first eight years, only Signe had been able to tell them apart. Now, _everybody_ could...at least, so long as they were visible below the waist. Above it, though, they were still quite identical.

Ritva had her younger brother Mike, Jr., in tow.

“Um,” said Mike, Sr., “ours...apparently.”

“Really?!” squealed Ritva.

“You mean they had _sex_?!” blurted Mike, Jr.

“Junior,” said Mike, “please be polite.”

“Sorry.”

“And, yeah...married people...uh...kind of do that.”

“But...how?”

“Son, a man tries not to think about his daughter having sex. You'll understand should you have any yourself.”

“No, I mean...they're both...”

“Yeah, I know.”

“The mechanics of...”

“Junior!” barked Mike, visibly squirming. “That's enough!”

Junior and Ritva joined their parents at the edge of the pool. After what Mike figured to be maybe twenty minutes, Junior broke the silence.

“So how long's that gonna take?”

“I have no idea, son.”

“Could be hours,” said Signe.

“I still don't think she's ready to have a baby,” said Mike.

“I think _you're_ not ready to be a grandfather,” said Signe.

“Damned right,” he said. “I'm not old enough.”

Signe raised an eyebrow. “Not old enough? Mike, you're forty-five. That's plenty old enough. And _I'm_ ten years younger than you are, remember?”

Their collective attention was caught by another disturbance in the water. They looked up to see Noah bobbing bare-chested on the surface, a goofy grin across his face. “It's a boy!” he announced.

Signe thumped her husband on the arm.

“Yeah,” said Mike, “you told me so.”

“That was fast,” said Ritva.

Noah shrugged. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

Signe raised an eyebrow.

“Never mind,” said Noah. “I think it's a difference in anatomy.”

“Where is she?” said Ritva.

“Oh, she's down eating the afterbirth,” Noah said casually.

“Oh, that's so gross!”

Noah shrugged again. “There's a lot of good nutrition in that. She needs it.”

“Alright, alright, alright,” said Mike, “I think that's a bit too much information for me.”

“Oh, here she comes,” said Noah, still looking at Mike.

Mike could see nothing in the water yet. “How can you tell?”

“Lateral lines.”

“Right,” said Mike dubiously.

“I thought you knew about all that.”

Mike havered.

“Mister Havel, it's been eight years. Surely you've adapted by now.”

Mike ran a hand through his hair. “I guess...look, eight years ago, I didn't think your kind even existed at all.”

Noah smiled, still bobbing oddly in the water. “I'm not sure I can help you with that. I was born one. Been one for over two centuries. That's not likely to change. So...no, I really can't relate. You'd have to talk to my father. He was in his twenties when he was changed, so his memories of having once been human are much stronger than Mary's. He's been more of a help to her that way than I think you can know.”

Mary broke the surface just behind Noah. He turned and helped her back to the ledge while she held their son. Her human family was spell-bound.

“Everyone,” she said, as she rocked the baby, “we'd like you to meet Michael Philip Swift.”

“Oh, honey,” said Signe. “He's gorgeous!”

“He has your hair, sis,” said Ritva.

“He has his daddy's eyes,” said Mary.

“And his grandfather's nose,” said Noah.

“He...has a tail,” said Mike flatly.

Mary rolled her eyes. “Daddy, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life,” she said sarcastically. “Of _course_ he has a tail! What were you expecting, legs?”

“Uh...” said Mike. He looked from his daughter to his other daughter to his son to his wife to his son-in-law, then back to Mary. Then he ran his hand through his hair. “I...always figured I'd do things with my grandkids like, oh, I don't know...play ball...ride bareback...shield wall...go fishing.”

“Daddy,” said Mary, making no effort to hide her exasperation. “I seriously doubt fishing is ever going to be a problem for him.”

Mike glanced down at his grandson. “You got me there. But I think you know that's not what I mean.”

Mary reached out, put a hand on her father's shoulder, and looked tenderly into his eyes. “You still think you lost me that day, don't you? You still equate personhood to being human, don't you? And you were hoping my child would be born with legs, if for no other reason than that I was born with legs and to give you some comfort that there's still something human left of me, weren't you? And you still feel that when I lost my legs, they took the rest of me with them, don't you? And now since you see for yourself that my son isn't human, you feel that I really died for good that day, don't you?”

Mike just looked right back at Mary, but said nothing.

Mary sighed. “Daddy, when are you going to learn that who we are has nothing whatsoever to do with what we are? I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it until death parts us...I'm still me. I know the world has been really weird since that day more than seventeen years ago and even weirder since that other day eight years ago. The truth is that the world and the universe are far stranger than anyone realized. I'm living proof of that.”

Ritva stepped up to the edge of the pool. “I hear ya, sis,” she said.

“Um,” said Junior, still staring at his nephew, “how can you tell he's a boy? I mean, I don't see his...you know.”

“First of all,” said Noah, “you'll notice he doesn't have nipples. Second, his tail doesn't have...well, we sort of call them 'fiddly bits'...like Mary's does. Third, his genital opening is more round, whereas on a girl, it would be more oblong and at least twice the size.”

“Uh...okay?”

“You don't see many babies, do you?”

Mike Junior shook his head. “Don't see a lot of your people, either.”

Ritva shoved something over her brother's shoulder. “This is for...him.” She held out a towel, one that her father had sitting on a table in case it had been too rainy outside and needed to dry off, and nodded to the baby.  
Mary bared her fangs, hissed, and practically jerked the baby away. Ritva started, jumped back slightly, and quickly retracted the towel. Mary relaxed a little.

Noah swished over to the edge of the pool, levered himself up out of the water, and rested a scaly hip on the pool's ledge. He leaned forward and peered at Ritva, who leaned back even more. “You,” said Noah, “pointed a towel at my son.” He practically growled it.

“S...sorry?” said Ritva.

Noah straightened up.

“But,” said Signe, “babies always need...dried off.”

“Ours don't,” said Noah. “Our young are highly susceptible to drying out. They don't need birthing fluids cleaned off, either. That's one of the benefits of being born underwater. Some of my siblings weren't even brought to the surface at all until their second year. And unlike you, we don't have to deal with those...what do you call them...oh, yes, diapers.”

“You could have killed him,” glowered Mary.

Ritva's eyes went wide. “I...I didn't know! I'm so sorry! I...”

Mary relaxed even more and let the smile return to her face. “It's okay, sis. No hard feelings?”

Ritva smiled too, and nodded. She turned to toss the towel across the room.

“Wait,” said Mike. He stood up and started to remove his shirt.

“What are you doing?” said Signe.

“ _I'm_ going to need that towel. I aim to hold my grandson. If that means getting in there...” He nodded at the water. “...then so be it.” He looked at Mary. “If that's alright with you.”

Mary smiled, then nodded vigorously. “Yes...yes, that would be just fine.”

Mike finished stripping down to his underwear, then stepped over to the pool. Mary slipped off the ledge while Mike took her place.

“Holy shit, this water's cold!” he said as he sat down in it. He shuddered even more when Noah leaned back and used his fin to dump more water onto Mike's upper body. Mary handed him the baby and swished back to tread water in the way only her kind could, her bare torso bobbing up and down in that curious manner.

From the waist up, little Michael was just like any other baby he'd held. It wasn't that he'd held all that many of them, but he did have four children of his own. From the waist down, however, his body was completely covered with scales. Both his legs, or what would have been legs for a human baby, were fused together into a single unit and instead of feet, his little body ended in a forked, fishy-looking fin...just like both of his parents. The baby squirmed like babies do, but with his lower extremity gently writhing up and down.

“He's...wet and...uh...slimy,” said Mike. “But I guess he's supposed to be like that, huh? Sure is cute, though.” Mike held up a finger and his grandson grasped it firmly. “He has quite the grip, too.” The little boy in his arms gazed up at him with sky-blue eyes and smiled. Mike cocked an eyebrow. “Uh...Mary? He looks like he has a lot of fluid in his mouth.”

“Oh...yeah, that,” said Mary. “I don't think he's spit up all the amniotic fluid in his lungs yet.”

Mike looked sharply at his daughter.

“What?” she said. “It's not like he can drown.”

At that moment, the boy spewed what must have been both lungs full of thick, cloudy liquid all over Mike's chest. Some of it splashed up onto his lower face. He started so much, he nearly dropped the baby. He blinked and stared down at the boy, who merely giggled at him just like any other baby.

Mary raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh!” she said, clearly embarrassed, “I am so sorry!”

Signe giggled.

“Ew!” said Ritva.

“Whoa, Dad,” laughed Junior. “He totally slimed you!”

Mike smiled. “It's okay,” he said, still looking at the baby. “I'm the one who's sorry. I'm happy to be...slimed...by my grandson.” A tear welled up in his eye. “He's beautiful, honey,” he said. “He really is. This is the best Christmas present anyone's ever given me. And I mean it.”

Mary smiled broadly, then swished over, levered herself up, and kissed her father on the cheek. She tried to hug him, but all three—mother, baby, and grandfather—toppled into the water with a great splash. All three emerged apparently unharmed, Mary bobbing in the water and holding the baby beneath the surface, and Mike heaving himself up onto the ledge while gasping for breath.

“ _Cold_!” he managed. The rest of his family helped him out of the water and obliged him the use of the towel. “Seriously, how do you stand that?”

Noah shrugged. “Actually...I have no idea.” He helped Mary back to the ledge and she set to nursing her son.

She grimaced. “Mama?” she said. “Is it...supposed to hurt like this?”

Signe smiled. “At first. You'll get used to it.”

Mike felt himself tearing up again, despite his shivering. He marveled at how a newborn baby could still teach him a thing or two. Despite being cold, wet and, well, kind of hungry, now that he thought about it...and apparently sharing those things with his new grandson...he was quite sure he'd received the best Christmas present ever.


End file.
